Team
VCAP Solutions management team has held leadership roles at global banks, insurance companies, and asset management firms, bringing firsthand experience in the management of structured product portfolios. The company is led by Managing Partner, Charles McLendon who was formerly the President and CIO of Primus Asset Management and previously the Global Head of the Investment Grade Credit Group at Bank of America. Ricardo Diaz and Brian Zwerner, former partners at Kensington Blake Capital, are also founding Partners of VCAP Solutions. The company has a core team of seven professionals that bring over 125 years of combined experience with support from Vertical Capital's highly advanced proprietary loan level technology platform. VCAP Solutions has dedicated professionals in offices in New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
Charles McLendon - Managing Partner
Ricardo Diaz - Partner
Brian Zwerner - Partner
Sherif Elias - New York
Michael Hargadon - New York
Peter Dwyer - Chicago
Michael Bilello - Chicago
Charles McLendon - Managing Partner
Charles McLendon has over 24 years of experience across a variety of fixed income asset classes. Most recently he was President and CIO of Primus Guaranty, responsible for the management of all Primus's proprietary and third-party managed portfolios, including the firm's CDPC business($24B portfolio) and its managed CSO and CLO portfolios. Previously, he held multiple leadership roles at Bank of America including Global Head of Investment Grade Group responsible for investment grade sales, trading and syndicate activities; including corporate bond, credit derivatives and structured credit products, as well as managing structured credit investment vehicles. He was also Head of Global Structured Products, which provided structured credit, investment and tax solutions across a range of asset classes. GSP included credit derivatives, CDOs, pension, insurance, and tax products. Prior to that role, he was Head of Structured Credit Products, responsible for the credit derivatives, corporate CDO and CLO businesses. Internal board responsibilities included BAS, Japan; Blue Ridge Funding; Principal Finance Group. He led strategic investments and sat on the boards of Vertical Capital, InCapital, and Markit Partners. Previous to Bank of America, he was Co-Head of Credit and Interest Derivatives at UBS, Head of Marketing for General Re Financial Products, and was a Vice President in Sales and Trading at Bankers Trust. He has a BA from the University of North Carolina and an MBA from the Darden School of Business.
Ricardo Diaz - Partner
Ricardo Diaz has 16 years of experience in the structured credit markets as an investment banker and portfolio manager. Ricardo joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake Capital platform. Previously, he was a Managing Partner and Founder of Angel Oak Capital Partners, a company investing in ABS, RMBS, CMBS and CDOs. He was also a Managing Principal and Founder of Terminus Asset Management Company, a CDO platform. Prior to this, Ricardo was a Managing Director in the Principal Finance Group at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, a service mark of SunTrust Banks. At SunTrust, he developed and successfully implemented a business plan to create a platform to purchase, issue, structure, and distribute CDOs backed by residential mortgages, leveraged loans, commercial real estate loans and bank trust preferred securities. Ricardo was also a CDO Portfolio Manager at AIG and Investment Banker (ABS) at both Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from Northwestern University.
Brian Zwerner - Partner
Brian Zwerner has 14 years of trading and structuring experience across a number of fixed income asset classes. Brian joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake Capital platform. Previously, he was a Managing Director and head of Structured Derivatives Products at Wachovia from 2005 to 2007, where he was responsible for all structured derivatives within fixed income including credit, interest rates, foreign exchange and commodities. From 1998 to 2005, Brian held a number of roles at Bank of America in London and Chicago. Most recently he was a Managing Director and head of Europe and Asia Rates at Bank of America. He built and managed trading books with total annual revenues of over $250MM. Brian worked in derivatives trading and marketing at Chase Manhattan Bank and First Union (now Wachovia) prior to joining Bank of America. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sherif Elias - New York
Sherif Elias has over 10 years of fixed income derivative and foreign exchange experience. Sherif joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake Capital platform. Previously, he was a Director in the Global Rates business at Wachovia where he was responsible for extending Wachovia's interest rate derivatives business to cover London based institutional clients. Under his leadership, Wachovia was able to build a significant interest rate derivatives franchise which included some of the largest and most sophisticated institutional clients in the industry. From 1999 to 2006, Sherif had successful stints in sales roles at Bank of America and Morgan Stanley where he covered various types of institutional clients including Hedge Funds, Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) and large insurance companies. He started his career at FX Concepts, a foreign exchange advisory and investment management firm. Sherif has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from James Madison University and an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Michael Hargadon - New York
Michael Hargadon has over 13 years of experience in the financial service industry. Michael joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake Capital platform. Previously, Mike was COO of Structured Derivatives Products, a group that was responsible for all structured derivatives within fixed income including credit, interest rates, foreign exchange and commodities. The business grew from start up to over $75MM in annual revenues. Mike started his career at Bear Stearns & Co. and has held key roles in designing and delivering portfolio management, trading and risk management systems to investment banks, exchanges and asset managers. Mike has a proven track record of delivering technology and infrastructure solutions to the financial services industry.
Peter Dwyer - Chicago
Peter Dwyer has 13 years experience in the valuation, structuring, and risk management of derivative products including credit, interest rate, and foreign exchange derivatives. Peter joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake platform. Previously, Peter was a Director and Structured Trader on the corporate synthetic CDO desk at Wachovia from 2005 to 2008 responsible for managing the customer pricing process. He also spent a year as the head of Market Risk Management for Structured and Credit Products at Wachovia (2004). Prior to joining Wachovia, Peter was a Principal at Bank of America in the Credit Derivatives and Structured Credit Products area. He spent his first three years (1995 to 1998) in the Market Risk Control Area covering foreign exchange and fixed income derivatives. In 1998, he joined a team of people who were responsible for building out Bank of America's Credit Derivative and Corporate Synthetic CDO business. In this group, Peter filled a variety of roles including designing infrastructure and risk management capabilities, creating valuation models, and executing transactions with customers. The business grew from startup mode to a business that was generating over $250 MM per year in revenue. Before entering banking, Peter worked as an actuary and had attained the ASA (Associate of the Society of Actuaries) designation.
Michael Bilello - Chicago
Michael Bilello has over 20 years of diverse experience in the structured finance and derivative industry. Michael joined VCAP from the Kensington Blake platform. Previously, he worked with Actuarials Holdings LLC, a start-up derivative clearinghouse that is pursuing a business model of clearing and settling OTC derivative trades. Prior to that, Michael started and managed structured derivative trading desks for Bank of America and Wachovia whereby structured derivative products were created and embedded within securitization vehicles. Starting off his career, Michael worked as a loan originator and servicer for General Motors Acceptance Corporation and Bank of New York and as a structured finance rating analyst for Standard and Poor's. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from S.U.N.Y. Albany and a Masters of Business Administration degree in finance from DePaul University.